"Then go find out," Otah said.
But Otah felt in his bones what the runners would tell him. Before the
signals came-trumpets struggling through the muffling snow. Before the
Galtic drums broke out in their manic pounding. Nine thousand veterans
led by the greatest general in Galt were pouring into his city and
facing blacksmiths and vegetable carters, laborers and warehouse guards.
He was losing.
24
Balasar trotted through the streets, his shield held above his head.
Despite what Sinja had said, the great towers of Machi commanded the
streets around them fairly well. 'T'hroughout the day, stones and bricks
peppered his men, sailing down from the sky with the force of boulders
hurled by siege engines. Arrows sometimes came down as well, their
points shattering against the ground where they struck despite the
slowly growing cushion of snow. Ile ducked into another doorway when he
came to it. Five of his own men were waiting, and the bodies of ten or
so of the enemy. It was a slow process, spreading out and then moving
down not only the streets that were the fastest path to the tunnels, but
also two or three to each side. The Khai Machi had learned a trick, and
he'd used it against Coal. But he didn't have a second strategy, and so
Balasar knew where to find the waiting forcesjust back from where they'd
he seen, waiting to attack on all sides at once. Instead, Balasar was
killing them by handfuls. It was a had way to fight-bloody, slow,
painful, and unnecessary.
But it was better than losing.
"General Gice, sir," the captain said as all the men saluted him.
Balasar raised his hand. his arm ached from holding the raised shield.
"We're, making progress, sir."
"Good," Balasar said. "What have we found?"
"All the smaller passages are blocked off, sir. Collapsed or filled with
rubble so deep we can't tell how long it would take to dig them out. And
they're narrow, sir. Two men together at most."
"We wouldn't want those anyway," Balasar said. "Better we keep for the
objectives. And casualties?"
" NN'e're estimating five hundred of the enemy dead, sir. But that's rough."
"And our men?"
"perhaps half that," the captain said.
"So many?"
"They aren't good fighters, sir, but they're committed.'
Balasar sighed, his mind shifting. If he assumed the force pushing
toward the palaces was having similar luck, that meant something like
fifteen hundred dead since he'd walked into the city. More, if there was
resistance in the south. This wasn't a battle, only slow, ugly
slaughter. He went to the doorway, peering out down the street. Etc
could hear the sounds of fighting-men's voices, the clash of metal on
metal. A hundred small outbursts that became a constant roar, like
raindrops falling on a pond.
"Get the drummer," he said. "We'll make a push for it. Scatter the
enemy, take the entrance to the tunnels and then get runners to the others."
"The men we're seeing, sir. They're able-bodied. And decent fighters,
some of them."
"They wanted to do this on the surface," l3alasar said. ""The tunnels
will he their second string. It won't be as bad once we're in there. If
they're smart, they'll see there's no point going on."
The captain saluted without answering. Balasar was willing to take that
as agreement.
It took perhaps half a hand to gather a force of men together. Two
hundred soldiers would press forward and take the forges, where Sinja
had said the paths down would be open. They were only another street
down. "There wasn't a line of defenders to crush, so the horsemen were
less useful. They could still move fast, and men on foot who entered the
streets wouldn't be able to attack them easily. Footmen with archers
interspersed between them ducking fast from doorway to doorway was the
best plan.
Etc explained it all to the group leaders, watching the men's faces as
he asked them to run through the rain of stones and arrows. Two hundred
men to move forward, to take control of the forges and then hold the
position against anything that came up out of it until the rest of their
force could join them. Balasar would lead them. Not one of them
hesitated or voiced objection.
"If we live until sunset," he said, "we'll see the end of this. Now take
formation."
The drum throbbed, the captains and group leaders scrambled to the
places where their men stood waiting. A few bricks detonated on the
street in their wake, but no one had stayed out long enough to be in
danger from them. Balasar squatted in his chosen doorway, rubbing his
shoulder. The air was numbing cold, and the great dark towers rose
around them, higher than the crows that wheeled and called, excited, he
guessed, by the smells of blood and carrion.
It struck him how beautiful the city was. Austere and close-packed, with
thick-walled buildings and heavy shutters. The brightness of snow and
the glittering icicles that hung from the eaves set off the darkness of
stone and echoed the vast blank sky. It was a city without colordark and
light with hardly even gray in between-and Balasar found himself moved
by it. He took a deep breath, watching the cloud of it that formed when
he exhaled. The drummer at his side licked his lips.
"Go," Balasar said.
The deep rattle sounded, echoing between the high walls of the houses,
and then the press was on, and Balasar launched himself into it, shield
high, shoulder cramping. He made it almost halfway to the shelter of the
forges and their great copper roofs before the arrows could drop the
distance of the towers. Five men fell around him as he ran that last
stretch and found himself in a tangle of heat and shouting and swinging
blades. One last group of the enemy had stayed hidden here to defy him,
to stand guard against them. Balasar shouted and moved forward with the
surge of his men. In the field, there would have been formation, rules,
order. This was only melee, and Balasar found himself hewing and hacking
with his blood singing and alive. It was an idiotic place for a general
to be, throwing himself in the face of a desperate enemy, but Balasar
felt the joy of it washing away his better sense. A man with a spear
fashioned from an old rake poked at him, and he batted the attack away
and swung hard, cutting the man down. Three of the locals had formed a
knot, fighting with their backs together. Balasar's men overwhelmed them.
And then it was finished. As suddenly as it had begun, the fight ended.
The bodies of the enemy lay at their feet, along with a few of their